Mangold Will Find His Answers At Work

October 2nd, 20125:14 pm

Corey Griffin , TheJetsBlog.com

Today we’re very happy to welcome back an old friend to the blog, Corey Griffin. Corey was our weekend editor a few years back and will be doing some work for us this season. Please welcome him back! This morning Corey went to a Chase Mastercard event in Midtown caught up with the Jets All-Pro Center.

Nick Mangold has fashioned a Pro Bowl career by pushing 300-pound behemoths around like rag dolls, but that doesn’t mean he has any interest in trying to match his Olympic weightlifting sister, Holley, in a feat of strength.

“We’ll never know, because I’ll never do those lifts,” the 6-foot-4, 307-pound Mangold said Tuesday at a promotional event for MasterCard and Chase in Midtown. “I think if I hurt myself doing that, the Jets people would be pretty upset.”

Mangold would be hard-pressed to find a more upset Jet than coach Rex Ryan after Sunday’s 34-0 shellacking at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers.

A cranky and aggravated Ryan ordered his team to take the next two days off for “soul searching,” but Ryan would have had to lock the doors and bar the windows to keep the Jets’ All-Pro center out.

“I went back into the facility and got right back to work,” Mangold said. “You know, that’s how I clear my head. Try to get back working. I was able to spend a little bit of time with my family after the game, but after that (I) just tried to get back into the groove of things and right the wrongs.”

There remain a lot of wrongs to right.

After a nearly fruitless preseason, the Jets piled up the points in a season-opening win over Buffalo that had many singing the praises of quarterback Mark Sanchez and the new offense imported by coordinator Tony Sparano. But Sanchez and Sparano’s attack has struggled mightily the past three weeks and an offense that was supposed to ground and pound opposing defenses has simply ground to a halt.

Part of the problem, Mangold says, is the Jets are missing on a lot of the little things that make offenses successful.

“We’ll have six guys doing the right thing, but one guy isn’t. Then the next play, we’ll the other six doing it right and the other guys not doing it right,” Mangold said of the Jets’ offensive line struggling in Sparano’s new offense. “You know, it’s all correctable things. We’ve had enough time in the system that we should know it in and out, so it’s just a matter of getting back to fundamentals.”

Mangold admitted that the injuries to top playmakers Dustin Keller and Santonio Holmes make things difficult, but says it’s time for their replacements to step up.

“We need that out of guys like (wide receivers) Jeremy Kerley and Chaz Schilens on the outside (and) Jeff Cumberland on the inside at tight end. … We gotta get better at the fundamentals,” Mangold said.

The problems have led an army of armchair coaches calling for Tim Tebow at quarterback over Sanchez, but in Sparano’s offense, it all starts with the run game and that means it all starts with Mangold and his fellow lineman getting the necessary push up front — something they’ve struggled to do since training opened in early August.

Maybe Mangold could seek out his sister for help. After all, Holley Mangold spent more than her fair share of time in the trenches as an offensive lineman on her Ohio high school’s boys football team.

“She knows better than that,” Mangold joked.

But with the powerhouse Houston Texans looming, a second straight loss could be on the horizon. Unless someone in green and white figure out the answer — and soon — the Jets will have plenty of time for soul searching come January.